I've thought about the fresh produce part, but where would those be found, and in what quantities? Would Stilt City or some of the Gur possibly be a good idea? I remember reading something about gnome tinkerers and hydroponics, could some type of steam powers produce proper light for underground farming, at least on a small scale, for things like tomatoes, beans, corn, etc?

Stilt City and the Gur are the first two places I'd look. 2nd Age posits that the Gur are coming more under the sway of the Legion, which could lead to another interesting set of tensions for your group. Also, the lunar rain has been less fierce the last 20 years or so, which means large-scale agriculture is more feasible now than it used to be. I assume the Stenians are working on getting a stronger agricultural base.

Underground farming is complicated by the fact that, if we're using something like real-world science, sunlight is hard to replicate artificially. That said, I'm sure some enterprising coglayer or steam mage could put together a device like a real-world plant light. As a GM, I wouldn't make it easy -- otherwise every community with a coglayer will have an underground garden, which undercuts the feel of the setting in my eyes -- but it's possible. And if someone did a small-scale operation like this, it would be worth more than a dragon's hoard to the right people.

1. So, I know that mech jockeys can use the Mechidextrous feat to essentially "replace" one of their gunners on the crew requirement, but how are assimilated treated for the purposes of crew requirement? One of my PCs wants to go into assimilated, and he's having trouble finding the rules governing the crew requirement for assimilated mechs.

2. I know lycanthropes get a +4 to the DC for Control Shape checks (because of the proximity of the moon) but I should ask: How is this modifier affected during a full moon?

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

The mechidextrous feat does not reduce the minimum crew requirement of a mech nor does one need to be a pilot to use it. It allows the any character who possesses it to operate two weapons at once. In order to do so, such a character would almost always have to be in the cockpit (or the bridge of a larger mech, which is really a special word "bigass cockpit"), and this is often the pilot (especially on smaller mechs) or a dedicated gunner with their own controls and seat in the cockpit with the pilot. This feat does not reduce the crew required to operate a weapon, it just allows the same person to act as the "gunner" on two weapons at once (even if one or neither is any sort of actual gun; I use the term as a general one that's shorter than "weapon operator"). For example, if a mech has two steam cannons that each require a crew of 3, the mechidextrous gunner can aim and fire both, but each cannon still requires two other characters (or NPCs) to operate it properly (load it, monitor pressures, etc); all the gunner does is aim and pull the trigger.

An assimilated with this feat would pretty much have to be the pilot, and the only thing that is affected by it would be that the assimilated uses his/her attack bonus (minus the mechidextrous penalty, -3) and operates two weapons on his/her mech. If those weapons both have a crew requirement of 1 (mainly melee weapons) then nobody else is needed for their operation. If either or both weapons require crews of more than one then the assimilated counts as one towards both (reduce the requirements of each by 1 and that's how many people are required to keep the weapon functioning). The exception is that if the assimilated has the appropriate steam powers available (from steamborg or coglayer levels) they can use automators to replace some or all additional crew members on the weapons.

"Minimum crew requirement" is a seperate thing that has nothing to do with weapons. Any mech must have people on it equal to 1/4 it's base PU to properly operate. This includes the pilot. The others could be stoking the furnaces, adjusting pressure gauges, realigning gears, or whatever else is necessary for operation of the mech. I'm actually not positive if those crew members can actually operate weapons while still serving their roles, but I guess that they can since even a twenty round combat is only 2 minutes long and as long as the boiler is well stoked and nothing is out of order when combat starts the mech should be able to function fine for at least a few minutes without constant attention. Now if something were to become damaged, well that is up to the DM if they want to require somebody realigning the leg actuators every round or else the mech moves at half speed and can only turn left or some such.

Unless the assimilated pilot has steam powers, as mentioned above, to do the regular upkeep tasks (which would require more complex constructs than simple automators) they still need living crew to maintain their mech. They just drive it, albeit extremely well.

If you jump over to Destiny of Steam and Steel and look at the mech Hemisphere - this mech has reduced crew. It uses artificial crew and I've posted the rules I made to explain how that works. These might be especially useful for an assimilated - if they can afford them.

Main thing we were trying to figure out was if an assimilated, being that a mech is essentially their body, could simply operate it by themselves. My example for this information was the Victor, from Second Age. I looked at it again just now, and it said "attended by numerous advanced clockwork puppets," so most likely that's what the rules intended in the first place.

For now, I'll go with that. However, I'd like Joseph's thoughts on this as well, since he wrote the class in the first place.

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

Main thing we were trying to figure out was if an assimilated, being that a mech is essentially their body, could simply operate it by themselves. My example for this information was the Victor, from Second Age. I looked at it again just now, and it said "attended by numerous advanced clockwork puppets," so most likely that's what the rules intended in the first place.

For now, I'll go with that. However, I'd like Joseph's thoughts on this as well, since he wrote the class in the first place.

I always play that an assimilated character still counts as a normal crew member for purposes of equipment. By the time someone is assimilated they most likely have feats that give them an unusually high level of control of ability over their mech (such as Mechidextrous). The assimilation process integrates their sensory perceptions with that of the mech, but doesn't convert a boiler powered by coal-shoveling into something else. Someone still has to shovel that coal. An assimilated character should have enough clockwork puppets or other steam powers that most (if not all) functions on his mech are automated -- and on a small mech, this shouldn't be a problem. Of course, on a big mech, that might be the Achilles heel of the assimilated!

Well, that campaign's bust, so I'm again writing stuff I doubt anyone will ever read . . . Darnit, I can't keep a DragonMech campaign going for more than a month without something going horribly wrong.

And, to throw in an actual question, how does this whole "more crew needed" thing apply to mech symbiotes?

In the mech symbiote class, it doesn't say one way or the other what happens, besides some of the fairly standard integrated-with-a-mech rules (mech subject to being aimed at for death effect, necromantic effects, registers on detect thoughts, etc.)

As a side note, the hellborg entry says "a hellborg may fuse with the mech's controls, much like an assimilated with the wired, perfect knowledge, and assimilated abilties."

But then it goes on to say "While installed, the hellborg can operate every system and weapon on the mech, regardless of crew requirements, using its own abilties and skills."

I assume the "much like" part is simply to give a greater idea of how this happens? It doesn't make sense if it says "it operates exactly like an assimilated" and then later contradicts itself, so it says "much like" instead. Right?

At least, I hope I'm right . . .

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

The ashigaru, dire armor, et cetera, are all listed as having stats, but I haven't found anything to explain how to create a new type of mech armor. Can someone fill me in on how the creation process differs from a traditional mech, and how you calculate all of the stats associated with the armor?

Good question... which I don't have a good answer to. We adapted things as we went and didn't put together a "how-to" file. I'll look through my notes to see if I can find anything...

Um . . . *raises hand* How's the rules clarification stuff coming? I'm working on a class that might need some of these questions answered soon.

Another thing to ask: in awaken construct, it doesn't say what happens if the spell is cast on a mech. Does it lose its crew requirement, like a shintaji spirit sealer mech, or does it require those people to keep it moving?

Finally, now that we've got Almanac of the Endless Traders, what's next on the DragonMech to-do list?

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

Um . . . *raises hand* How's the rules clarification stuff coming? I'm working on a class that might need some of these questions answered soon.

I haven't turned up any internally consistent guidelines on how to make mech armor work. It's an interesting idea that creates more problems than it solves, which is why you haven't seen much of it in subsequent supplements. If you want to work with it, my advice is to use the GM's Best Friend -- intelligent guesses.

All right. I guess I can forego putting that specific feature into the class.

As for making intelligent guesses, it would work just fine, usually. Problem is, I'm trying to write this stuff as if it was for a person who had nothing besides the SRD and the DragonMech books. Mostly so I can actually feel like I'm writing usable material. Which means that, while I could write my own rules, I'd rather use the official stuff. So far I'm up to . . . seven good unedited "complete" prestige classes, another sixteen "in-progress" classes, and seven more that still need concept work done. Not counting all of the Steam Pantheon stuff. Plus the extra feats, magic items, new spells, new weapons, new mech weaponry and new monster concepts. *blink blink* Ookay, I need something better to do with my time. This is what happens when I don't have a group to run adventures for. Oh, well.

In any case, can anyone grab me the other info I need? If I can get a ruling on awaken construct, that'll help with writing about four classes which need some progress done.

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

I was looking at Constructor spells in Steam Warriors, and I noticed the refurbish spell. It says "A mech, steam power, or steam-driven device targeted by this spell is cleaned thoroughly." It goes on to say "In short, refurbish carries out rountine maintenance on a steam device and cleans its appearance." Does this allow a constructor to use refurbish to maintain steam powers? Granted, only one per casting, but that still seems a bit powerful for a 1st level spell.

Also, I know lunarborgs have to make a save each level to avoid gaining levels in lunarborg. This class feature is called Addiction. If the lunarborg makes the save, that means they've overcome the addiction, correct? So, would they then lose that ability until they become addicted again, and thus would not have to make the save again? I'm trying to work out what would happen if someone tied a lunarborg down to the floor until he lost his addiction.

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

the saving throw is not, I think, a save against the addiction itself, but, rather, a save against the craving brought on by the addiction. Much like a person addicted to smoking can, by will power, not smoke at any given time, the cravings will not nessesarily go away from any single given act of will (or whatever the save is...), and can then only be beaten by multiple concerted and contiguous acts of will

*shrug* but then, I don't know anything past what you put in your post, so it's not much of a point of view.

In the description of the Steam Jack feat (Steam Warriors, pg. 16-17), it says "Each day you are in a gear forest, you do not need to maintain your steam powers." Does this mean that a coglayer with that feat can maintain an infinite number of steam powers, because he doesn't actually need to maintain them? My DM sense is tingling, and it's saying "no, alert, bad imbalance ahead."

I was looking at the cogling crawler stats, and noticed that the advancement goes “1/6-1 HD (Tiny), 2-6 HD (Small), 8-16 (Medium)” First, small typo, the HD is missing before Medium, and second, are there simply no 7 HD cogling crawlers? If so, why? Is this another typo?

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

In the description of the Steam Jack feat (Steam Warriors, pg. 16-17), it says "Each day you are in a gear forest, you do not need to maintain your steam powers." Does this mean that a coglayer with that feat can maintain an infinite number of steam powers, because he doesn't actually need to maintain them? My DM sense is tingling, and it's saying "no, alert, bad imbalance ahead."

I was looking at the cogling crawler stats, and noticed that the advancement goes “1/6-1 HD (Tiny), 2-6 HD (Small), 8-16 (Medium)” First, small typo, the HD is missing before Medium, and second, are there simply no 7 HD cogling crawlers? If so, why? Is this another typo?

I'm just guessing here, but I'd say the intent of the Steam Jack feat is that you do not need to spend any time maintaining your steam powers. You can use that hour every morning to sleep in a bit, and your steam powers will still work.

As far as the cogling crawler goes, my guess is it's a typo.

Last edited by mythfish on Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

So, in addition to some of the new questions here, I've got a list of questions that haven't been answered yet.

1. Do mech symbiotes with the True Symbiosis class feature deal with crew requirements as an assimilated (crew needed to keep mech running) or as a hellborg using Fuse Mech (no crew needed)? See above discussions on crew requirements.

2. How is crew requirement and number of crew needed to fire weapons affected when a mech is the recipient of an awaken construct spell?

3. Any plans after Almanac of the Endless Traders for the DragonMech line?

4. Does refurbish allow characters with access to that spell to maintain steam powers? See quotes from spell in the above post.

5. Are 7 HD cogling crawlers Small or Medium creatures?

6. In the main DragonMech book, it says that "Any corpse reanimated with a steam engine can be reanimated as a smoking dead zombie or skeleton using the animate dead spell." However, it lists no spell used to create meat racks.

7. Later on that same page, it says "A steam engine strong enough to power a Medium smoking dead costs 100 gp." Since a meat rack is a Large smoking dead, how expensive is the engine to power it?

8. Do steamborgs with an upgrade to a natural attack actually gain said natural attack, or does the attack have to be pre-existing in order to be enhanced?

9. Do monster parts (from the steam monster prestige class, SW) count towards the number of artificial parts a steamborg has for Constitution limits and lose self checks? It seems like they should, but they don't say either way.

I know I'll think of more soon.

Edit: Took out the Control Shape question. Silly DM, read the skill description!

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

I'll try to tackle some of these, but read this disclaimer: none of these things you have questions about are things I wrote, so my opinion doesn't really hold any more weight than yours, and furthermore the only book I have handy to reference at the moment is Steam Warriors.

Sword Guy wrote:

1. Do mech symbiotes with the True Symbiosis class feature deal with crew requirements as an assimilated (crew needed to keep mech running) or as a hellborg using Fuse Mech (no crew needed)? See above discussions on crew requirements.

Given the description of the mech symbiote and the true symbiosis ability, it seems reasonable to me that no crew would be required.

Quote:

2. How is crew requirement and number of crew needed to fire weapons affected when a mech is the recipient of an awaken construct spell?

Um...hmmm. As an easy answer, I'd say an awakened mech is perfectly capable of operating itself and its weapons with little or no need for crew (though it would have a hard time doing maintenance on itself). To make things a little more complicated though, I might say the number of crew members the mech "replaces" depends on its intelligence score. I'd also rule that the mech can only effectively use weapons in a forward arc (in its "field of vision"), though a crew member could still operate weapons facing in other directions. And even though the mech may be able to fire its own weapons, it may not be GOOD at it.

The big tradeoff for having a mech that operates itself though, is that even though it is friendly toward the person who awakend it, it is a fully developed personality. In other words, it's an NPC with its own wants, personality quirks, and agenda. It may not fully understand what characters explain to it, and even if it does it may flat out refuse to do it.

Quote:

3. Any plans after Almanac of the Endless Traders for the DragonMech line?

Joseph is really the only one who can answer that.

Quote:

4. Does refurbish allow characters with access to that spell to maintain steam powers? See quotes from spell in the above post.

The spell says you can target a steam power, so I think you could use it to maintain a steam power. I don't think that's really all that powerful...if I had it prepared, I wouldn't use it on a steam power except in very rare circumstances. Using the spell to maintain a steam power wouldn't really save you any time unless you only had one steam power; you would still have to spend an hour maintaining all your other steam powers since the "hour in the morning" rule isn't dependent on how many steam powers you have. It's a first level constructor spell, which seems reasonable to me given that they specialize in the blending of magic and tech. Non-constructors have to be third level before they can cast it.

Quote:

5. Are 7 HD cogling crawlers Small or Medium creatures?

I'd go with medium for no particular reason other than I have a hard time imagining a small creature with that many hit points.

Quote:

6. In the main DragonMech book, it says that "Any corpse reanimated with a steam engine can be reanimated as a smoking dead zombie or skeleton using the animate dead spell." However, it lists no spell used to create meat racks.

I believe in the Player's Handbook there is a spell called create undead that allows one to create more powerful undead like ghouls, ghasts, and wights. I'd use that as the spell for creating meat racks.

Steam Warriors seems to contradict the core book a bit in that regard, in that the necroborg engine and necroborg harness steam powers are used to create smoking dead and meat racks, and no spells are necessary.

Quote:

7. Later on that same page, it says "A steam engine strong enough to power a Medium smoking dead costs 100 gp." Since a meat rack is a Large smoking dead, how expensive is the engine to power it?

I would just pull a number out of my butt, say 200 gp. But if you want something more scientific, figure out the cost to hit die ratio...twice the cost of the engine would give you twice the hit dice of a medium smoking dead? Hard to do without that book in front of me. Oho! Wait...the necroborg harness steam power says it costs 500 gp to create an engine for a meat rack.

Quote:

8. Do steamborgs with an upgrade to a natural attack actually gain said natural attack, or does the attack have to be pre-existing in order to be enhanced?

I think I'd need my core book to answer that one.

Quote:

9. Do monster parts (from the steam monster prestige class, SW) count towards the number of artificial parts a steamborg has for Constitution limits and lose self checks? It seems like they should, but they don't say either way.

4. Does refurbish allow characters with access to that spell to maintain steam powers? See quotes from spell in the above post.

The spell says you can target a steam power, so I think you could use it to maintain a steam power. I don't think that's really all that powerful...if I had it prepared, I wouldn't use it on a steam power except in very rare circumstances. Using the spell to maintain a steam power wouldn't really save you any time unless you only had one steam power; you would still have to spend an hour maintaining all your other steam powers since the "hour in the morning" rule isn't dependent on how many steam powers you have. It's a first level constructor spell, which seems reasonable to me given that they specialize in the blending of magic and tech. Non-constructors have to be third level before they can cast it.

Oh wait...I suddenly see why you think it might be too powerful. I was operating under the assumption that the only person using it would be someone who already has the ability to maintain steam powers, and that it wouldn't actually increase the number of steam powers one had access to. But it doesn't actually say that, so I'd like to revise my opinion on that one. I'd say no, it can't be used to maintain steam powers. You can cast it on a steam power and clean it up nice and perform "routine maintenance" on it. I think "routine maintenance" is just a poor choice of words in the description, and when you are officially maintaining steam powers, it requires specialized knowledge beyond simple "routine maintenance" to make them operate effectively.

A spell that actually does maintain a steam power is a cool idea, though.

I'll try to tackle some of these, but read this disclaimer: none of these things you have questions about are things I wrote, so my opinion doesn't really hold any more weight than yours, and furthermore the only book I have handy to reference at the moment is Steam Warriors.

Understand completely. Your answers are still more official than mine, though, since you've actually written official material for the DragonMech line.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

1. Do mech symbiotes with the True Symbiosis class feature deal with crew requirements as an assimilated (crew needed to keep mech running) or as a hellborg using Fuse Mech (no crew needed)? See above discussions on crew requirements.

Given the description of the mech symbiote and the true symbiosis ability, it seems reasonable to me that no crew would be required.

Seemed that way to me too, but then, I thought that an assimilated wouldn't have to have crew members because the mech became his body. Thought I'd get an semi-official-opinion from someone else, since I'm partial to the no-crew-members version.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

2. How is crew requirement and number of crew needed to fire weapons affected when a mech is the recipient of an awaken construct spell?

Um...hmmm. As an easy answer, I'd say an awakened mech is perfectly capable of operating itself and its weapons with little or no need for crew (though it would have a hard time doing maintenance on itself). To make things a little more complicated though, I might say the number of crew members the mech "replaces" depends on its intelligence score. I'd also rule that the mech can only effectively use weapons in a forward arc (in its "field of vision"), though a crew member could still operate weapons facing in other directions. And even though the mech may be able to fire its own weapons, it may not be GOOD at it.

The big tradeoff for having a mech that operates itself though, is that even though it is friendly toward the person who awakened it, it is a fully developed personality. In other words, it's an NPC with its own wants, personality quirks, and agenda. It may not fully understand what characters explain to it, and even if it does it may flat out refuse to do it.

Makes sense. The only quibble I have with that is over the "forward arc" part, since 3.5 doesn't have facing rules. It's assumed that anything in combat is turning and twisting, keeping all opponents in sight. I agree that it may not be good at firing weapons, though. I think that I'll use the rule that an awakened mech requires no crew members, since it seems odd that a sentient, mech-sized creature (which can control the mech "shell" as if it was its own body), would have to have two or three people in the "stomach" who were feeding it coal.

As for NPC-ism, exactly right. I was trying to take that into consideration, but most of these questions I ask are only for my own enlightenment or entertainment value. I don't think I'll wind up with PCs who want to cast awaken construct until high levels, by which time they'll probably have custom-designed stuff on their mech that worries me much more.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

3. Any plans after Almanac of the Endless Traders for the DragonMech line?

Joseph is really the only one who can answer that.

Well, I hope to get an answer from Joseph soon, then. It'd be nice to know what's next so that, when I get a campaign going, I don't have to go in and rewrite stuff to make it compatible with the new book. But if it's about something like the cosmology, or the moon, I can probably not worry, since I doubt I'll have 3rd-level PCs who decide to go plane- or ether-hopping.

mythfish wrote:

Oh wait...I suddenly see why you think it might be too powerful. I was operating under the assumption that the only person using it would be someone who already has the ability to maintain steam powers, and that it wouldn't actually increase the number of steam powers one had access to. But it doesn't actually say that, so I'd like to revise my opinion on that one. I'd say no, it can't be used to maintain steam powers. You can cast it on a steam power and clean it up nice and perform "routine maintenance" on it. I think "routine maintenance" is just a poor choice of words in the description, and when you are officially maintaining steam powers, it requires specialized knowledge beyond simple "routine maintenance" to make them operate effectively.

A spell that actually does maintain a steam power is a cool idea, though.

Exactly. I was looking at it and thinking "huh, there are rules in the DMG for creating at-will use 1st level spells. 1st level spell = refurbish. Infinite refurbish = infinite # of steam powers maintained per day."

"Routine maintenance" was really a question because "maintain" is the word used to describe keeping steam powers running. If the spell had said "routine sustenance" and not listed steam powers as a possible target of the spell, I wouldn't have been so worried about it. Again, another question that is mostly to gather other opinions.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

5. Are 7 HD cogling crawlers Small or Medium creatures?

I'd go with Medium for no particular reason other than I have a hard time imagining a Small creature with that many hit points.

I only recently started reading the monster creation and advancement rules in the MM, mostly because I run a combat-light game (unless the PCs are really stupid). So I still haven't gotten used to looking at advancement and being able to figure out exactly why each number was placed there. When I start getting more accustomed to the rules, and finish statting the monsters I've written, I'll probably have a better idea of what HD should go where.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

6. In the main DragonMech book, it says that "Any corpse reanimated with a steam engine can be reanimated as a smoking dead zombie or skeleton using the animate dead spell." However, it lists no spell used to create meat racks.

I believe in the Player's Handbook there is a spell called create undead that allows one to create more powerful undead like ghouls, ghasts, and wights. I'd use that as the spell for creating meat racks.

Steam Warriors seems to contradict the core book a bit in that regard, in that the necroborg engine and necroborg harness steam powers are used to create smoking dead and meat racks, and no spells are necessary.

The necroborg engine and necroborg harness steam powers are designed to be used only by the necroborg. Because of this limitation, I wanted to confirm which spell would be used to create a meat rack if done the traditional, magical way. I think what the steam powers are saying is that no magic is necessary for the steam powers to function, but magic is necessary if you're not using the steam powers to create smoking dead.

I thought create undead too, but I wanted to check and make sure I wasn't missing some aspect of d20 rules regarding undead.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

7. Later on that same page, it says "A steam engine strong enough to power a Medium smoking dead costs 100 gp." Since a meat rack is a Large smoking dead, how expensive is the engine to power it?

I would just pull a number out of my butt, say 200 gp. But if you want something more scientific, figure out the cost to hit die ratio...twice the cost of the engine would give you twice the hit dice of a medium smoking dead? Hard to do without that book in front of me.

I think that would work if I was designing a bigger smoking skeleton, but trying to extrapolate skeleton costs to a meat rack would probably end up wrong. Since not only is one a lesser undead and one a normal undead ("normal" being less powerful than "greater"), but also they're different sizes and methods of construction.

mythfish wrote:

Oho! Wait...the necroborg harness steam power says it costs 500 gp to create an engine for a meat rack.

I disagree, because the cost for a steam power does not accurately reflect the cost of the components. The necroborg engine costs 120 gp, but the engine itself (without the necroborg additions) costs 100 gp. I can't trust my own judgement for this because smoking dead are sufficiently outside the range I've dealt with before. I'd like to get some more opinions from the "official" people.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

8. Do steamborgs with an upgrade to a natural attack actually gain said natural attack, or does the attack have to be pre-existing in order to be enhanced?

I think I'd need my core book to answer that one.

The core book just puts the steamborg enhancements in three columns: Function, Change, and Bonus Eqv. Under Function, it says "Natural weapon or unarmed damage," under Change "Next higher die (1d4 to 1d6 to 1d8, etc.)," and under Bonus Eqv. "+1." Problem is, from that I can't deduce whether a steamborg gains a natural attack or simply increases the dice of a pre-existing one. Also helping with the perplexity is the steam monster prestige class, which allows for "monster parts" to grant a bite or claw attack to a steam monster.

mythfish wrote:

Sword Guy wrote:

9. Do monster parts (from the steam monster prestige class, SW) count towards the number of artificial parts a steamborg has for Constitution limits and lose self checks? It seems like they should, but they don't say either way.

I'd say pretty clearly yes on that one.

Thought so, but asking never hurts.

Thanks for the help. With some luck, your answers will make it possible to finish up some prestige classes and compose some new spells.

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

Makes sense. The only quibble I have with that is over the "forward arc" part, since 3.5 doesn't have facing rules. It's assumed that anything in combat is turning and twisting, keeping all opponents in sight. I agree that it may not be good at firing weapons, though. I think that I'll use the rule that an awakened mech requires no crew members, since it seems odd that a sentient, mech-sized creature (which can control the mech "shell" as if it was its own body), would have to have two or three people in the "stomach" who were feeding it coal.

Even though 3.5 doesn't have specific facing rules, it's pretty easy to keep track of front and back, left side and right side. I agree with the "twisting and turning" logic when it comes to individual combatants, but it doesn't seem to me that most mechs would be maneuverable enough to do that. But it was mostly suggested simply as an option to maintain game balance if you thought mechs running around firing all their weapons is too much.

I went back and read Joseph's earlier comments about assimilated, and kind of changed my mind about the crew. It does make some sense to me that even an awakened mech wouldn't be able to shovel coal into its own engines without some physical modifications, so I'd probably say that 1-2 crew members are still necessary for even an awakened mech to continue operating.

Sword Guy wrote:

The necroborg engine and necroborg harness steam powers are designed to be used only by the necroborg. Because of this limitation, I wanted to confirm which spell would be used to create a meat rack if done the traditional, magical way. I think what the steam powers are saying is that no magic is necessary for the steam powers to function, but magic is necessary if you're not using the steam powers to create smoking dead.

Oh, right on. I suppose there is no reason the same critter can't be created through slightly different methods.

Sword Guy wrote:

I disagree, because the cost for a steam power does not accurately reflect the cost of the components. The necroborg engine costs 120 gp, but the engine itself (without the necroborg additions) costs 100 gp. I can't trust my own judgement for this because smoking dead are sufficiently outside the range I've dealt with before. I'd like to get some more opinions from the "official" people.

Well, you could work the ratio aspect a bit differently then. If a necroborg engine costs 120% of the engine without the steam power aspects, then you could assume that the 500 gp for the necroborg harness is 120% of the harness without the steam powers. So...417 gp if I've done the math right. It's still a fairly arbitrary judgement, but if anyone asks you at least have a rationale for the cost.

Even though 3.5 doesn't have specific facing rules, it's pretty easy to keep track of front and back, left side and right side. I agree with the "twisting and turning" logic when it comes to individual combatants, but it doesn't seem to me that most mechs would be maneuverable enough to do that. But it was mostly suggested simply as an option to maintain game balance if you thought mechs running around firing all their weapons is too much.

I went back and read Joseph's earlier comments about assimilated, and kind of changed my mind about the crew. It does make some sense to me that even an awakened mech wouldn't be able to shovel coal into its own engines without some physical modifications, so I'd probably say that 1-2 crew members are still necessary for even an awakened mech to continue operating.

Fair enough. I'm personally a fan of the assimilated not needing any other crew members, since I don't like (from a PC standpoint) the idea that if the party leaves the mech, the assimilated shuts down. Not worth the high prereqs, then. But I also tend to run games based around out-of-mech stuff, so maybe that's something to worry about only for mech combat. In any case, I'm going to house-rule that 5th level assimilated and awakened mechs do not have to have a crew.

I'm not worried about mechs running around with weapons blazing, mostly. The easy way to say "no" to that is to simply say "the mech decides that it doesn't want to fire any weapons, because its lazy."

mythfish wrote:

Well, you could work the ratio aspect a bit differently then. If a necroborg engine costs 120% of the engine without the steam power aspects, then you could assume that the 500 gp for the necroborg harness is 120% of the harness without the steam powers. So...417 gp if I've done the math right. It's still a fairly arbitrary judgement, but if anyone asks you at least have a rationale for the cost.

That works quite well. I'll probably round that to 420. But that does give a price, which is good.

Well, except for "what's after Almanac," that's all my questions. Back to designing game material!

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

Makes sense. The only quibble I have with that is over the "forward arc" part, since 3.5 doesn't have facing rules. It's assumed that anything in combat is turning and twisting, keeping all opponents in sight. I agree that it may not be good at firing weapons, though. I think that I'll use the rule that an awakened mech requires no crew members, since it seems odd that a sentient, mech-sized creature (which can control the mech "shell" as if it was its own body), would have to have two or three people in the "stomach" who were feeding it coal.

3.5 doesn't normally deal in facing rules, however...

facing is a concern when it comes to flying creatures and vehicles like chariots and boats, and mechs follow a similar rule set (degrees of rotation durring movement and so on)

when dealing with mechs with a maneuverability that doesn't grant free rotation, you should be keeping track of facing for firing weapons and movement. figuring out the firing arc a target is in is not a great extension of that.

However, I disagree that an awakened mech would have a field of vision that is only in the front 90 degrees. As a magically animated construct, a mech could concievably be capable of sensing it's surroundings in all directions by non-visual means... I would check the section in the MM on animated objects to see how they sense things and carry over some or all of that to an awakened mech.

That's a good point for the rotation. I was forgetting some of the mech rules and the rules for flying creatures. Guess I need to reread all of my books again. I shouldn't miss something as big as that.

I've never really done mech combat much before. Most of my PCs have been focused on not dying, and thus not getting into fights. Haven't played with anyone gung-ho enough to actually build a mech specifically for mech-based combat. Then again, I haven't played with anyone who's gung-ho about anything in the DragonMech setting.

As for constructs (which is what an animated object is), they gain 60 ft. darkvision and low-light vision. A columnist on the WotC D&D site said that it makes sense for constructs to be assumed to see as well as a normal human. Of course, all constructs are creatures, and the mech rules probably don't apply to them, so I don't know how facing rules would apply.

To add a new question to the mix, how fast does an extender work? It doesn't say how long it takes for an extender to affect an object. I'm working on a concept that kind of needs to know that.

Still can't believe I blanked on that big of a rule . . .

_________________DragonMech DM soon, with any luck.

Owner of all DragonMech books, Etherscope core book, and DCC 12.5: Iron Crypt of the Heretics.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum